


hearth

by since_I_saw_vienna



Series: broken families and abandoned boys [2]
Category: Minecraft (Video Game), Video Blogging RPF
Genre: Angst, Child Abandonment, Fox Hybrid Floris | Fundy, Gen, Good uncle tommyinnit, Older Sibling Wilbur Soot, Phil is a Bad Dad, TommyInnit-centric (Video Blogging RPF), Wilbur Soot and Technoblade and TommyInnit are Siblings, sbi as family, wilbur is a good dad
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2021-02-09
Updated: 2021-02-09
Packaged: 2021-03-14 17:08:25
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,755
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/29299407
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/since_I_saw_vienna/pseuds/since_I_saw_vienna
Summary: Tommy promises himself that it will be him, Wilbur, and Fundy forever. He promises he won't let them be left again.Or; the story of a family told from Tommy's perspective
Relationships: Floris | Fundy & TommyInnit, Floris | Fundy & Wilbur Soot & TommyInnit, TommyInnit & Phil Watson (Video Blogging RPF), Wilbur Soot & TommyInnit
Series: broken families and abandoned boys [2]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/2151909
Comments: 12
Kudos: 387





	hearth

**Author's Note:**

> Not necessary to read heartbreak before this but it will provide context!

Tommy doesn't know why Sally left them. 

He knows that she left, of course, he isn't stupid. He is twelve years old, a big man. He knows that she left them. 

He knows in the way Wilbur cries at night, in the way they remove her chair at the table and no one sits in her spot on the couch. He feels the absence in the form of an empty piano room. He hasn't played since she left.

His brother doesn't acknowledge it much, he just holds Tommy tight and promises it isn't his fault that first morning they find her gone. Tommy had been confused, then. Wouldn't she be back?

But then he saw the note clutched in Wilbur's hands, saw the way her things were gone from their room. The way Wilbur turned her pictures down to face the table. And Tommy knew she wouldn't be coming back. 

Wilbur's promises don't make it hurt any less. His gut still twists when he sees her empty chair, and it reminds him of staring at his father's door when he was younger, waiting for him to return. He hasn't seen Phil in two years, now. 

Tommy isn't stupid, and he knows this isn't normal. He knows it isn't normal to live with your older brother in an empty house, to struggle to remember your father's voice. But it's been this way forever, and Tommy can't bring himself to worry about it. He's mad, of course. He can feel the faint resentment towards his father for leaving Wilbur, for never being there for him. He hears how Wilbur cries sometimes. He remembers piles of drawings he never got to show off.

But Tommy is too tired to hate his father. He never really thought of him as a dad anyway, not like Wilbur did. He doesn't remember a time before Phil was away, the word father has never meant all that much to him. ( _It seems the same goes for Phil, too_ )

So, it goes to say that Tommy _knows_ Sally left them. He is familiar enough with the concept by now. But he doesn't understand _why._

Everything had been so good. Wilbur and Sally loved each other, they loved _him_ . Why would she leave? You're not supposed to leave people you love, he doesn't think. ( _What about Phil? What about Techno?_ )

Tommy misses her stories, she always had the best ones. Wilbur tries his best, really, but he's never left home all that much. Sally travelled far and wide before she lived with them. She told stories of oceans and islands and far away places, and Tommy was captivated. 

He misses the way she and Wilbur would sing to him some nights, drifting off to the sound of an acoustic guitar. Wilbur hasn't touched his guitar since Sally left them, hasn't sung to him at all. Tommy doesn't blame him, he thinks it would hurt too much to remember. 

He misses the way she would let him braid her long, wavy hair. It was red-tinted orange, like a painted sunset. He misses the way she taught him how to weave flowers together into a crown. He misses how she would read to him. He misses the way she held his fingers and taught him piano. Tommy misses Sally. The house had finally been full, so why did she have to leave? 

Tommy thinks he misses Wilbur's laugh most of all. Loud and booming and _warm._ His brother laughs, still, but Tommy can hear the strained edge to it. He can see how the smiles never reach his eyes. Wilbur is no longer bright and loud, he's dull and small and subdued. There's sadness in the way he moves, now. It lingers in his eyes. 

Tommy misses Sally more than anything, but there's anger now, too, for the woman he loved like an older sister. Because she didn't just leave, she took Wilbur with her. His bright, kind brother who loves them both more than anything. She's broken him and Tommy is so, so angry. 

Every time he hears Wilbur's cries at night, muffled through the dark, empty house, Tommy is angry. He decides he will never leave his older brother, because too many people have. He thinks of Phil, of Techno, of Sally, and he decides he will go wherever Wilbur does. He decides it will always be the two of them together. Tommy drifts off to the faint noise of muffled crying and he makes a promise. 

Tommy doesn't know why Sally has left them, but she has, and Tommy won't let it happen again. 

Tommy is overjoyed when he meets his nephew. 

He is tiny and soft and his eyes are like copper in the sun. His ears and tail are so much like Sally's, and briefly Tommy's mind flits to the way he would play with them when he was younger. His fur is orange, though, not tinted red, and his eyes are brown rather than green. He has Wilbur's eyes.

The first time he holds his nephew, Tommy thinks he understands the way Wilbur felt when he was born. He wants to curl around the little body in his arms and shield him from everything wrong in the world. Tommy finds that he likes being an uncle. 

Fundy (Tommy smiles when Wilbur keeps the name he suggested, swelling in pride) grows quickly. It's the hybrid genes, they think, but soon he's almost double the size he had been when they found him on the doorstep. Tommy loves him with everything he has. 

Fundy takes his first steps when Wilbur is at the store, and lands squarely in Tommy's arms. He laughs as Wilbur shouts in outrage when he gets home. 

His second ever word is Tommy (though it comes out more like 'ommy'), and soon enough he's saying swears while Wilbur desperately tries to get him to stop. Tommy is cackling in the background.

Wilbur starts to sing again, he picks up his guitar and lulls his son to sleep one night as Tommy holds him gently. And suddenly, the house feels full again. Once quiet halls are filled with laughter and empty rooms are filled with toys and there are drawings pinned to the walls. Tommy makes sure to praise every single one. 

Wilbur is blindingly bright as he laughs, throwing his head back as Fundy scribbles all over Tommy's arm. And Tommy smiles. 

At some point, Tommy adds Fundy to his little promise. He decides it will be the three of them, no matter what. 

One day, he finds Fundy in the music room. Wilbur keeps his spare guitars in there mostly, but Fundy is sat in the seat of the worn grand piano pushed into the corner. He looks almost five now, though it's barely been a year. His nephew is pressing the keys at random with clumsy little paws, and Tommy's heart squeezes slightly. Wilbur might have started playing guitar again, but he still hasn't played since Sally left them. It fills him too much with memories of late nights seated in that very spot, Sally's fingers over his own.

"That was your mom's," he says quietly, coming up behind the hybrid. 

His nephew starts, turning to face him with wide eyes. He blinks "she knew how to play?" 

Tommy nods, a soft grin on his lips. "She taught me everything I know."

" _You_ know how to play?"

"Yup, scoot over." 

Tommy plays piano for the first time in over a year. 

It becomes a common occurrence. He teaches Fundy how to play piano and Wilbur watches them with a sad little smile, pride written across his face. Tommy thinks things are going to be okay. 

He's holding Fundy's hand out in the woods, fourteen, and pointing out every single plant he can remember the name of. Sally had taught him them all (sometimes it makes him ache to think that Sally had been more of a mother to him than she ever was to Fundy.) Sometimes they stand out there and spar, sometimes they walk, sometimes they sit and weave flowers into crowns. Fundy looks almost seven now, and it's bittersweet how fast he's growing. Tommy teaches him everything about fighting he ever learned from Technoblade.

He is fifteen when Wilbur tells them it is time to leave. Tommy follows him without question. He never cared for Phil's house, anyway. It was never his home. Home is late nights with Wilbur, reading to Fundy by candlelight. He has a promise to uphold.

They settle in the DreamSMP, and Fundy looks fourteen. It's odd, for the nephew he taught to read and play piano and sword fight, the nephew who's hand he held and who's nightmares he soothed, to be nearly his age. But Fundy is still his nephew, and Tommy still loves him with everything. They grow to be friends as well as family. 

Wilbur is twenty five, and over the year they fight for L'manberg Fundy has grown to be almost Tommy's height. He finds it funny how no one believes his brother when he claims Fundy as his son. He is twenty now, and Tommy finds it hard to look into his baby nephew's eyes and see a man older than himself. Still, those eyes are the same copper brown and Tommy still loves Fundy more than anything. So they fight for Wilbur's country together, and Tommy is proud. 

Fundy plays piano in his blue petticoat, and Tommy smiles. He weaves flower crowns with Niki, and Tommy denies ever knowing how to do so. Fundy braids Niki's hair, and Tommy pretends not to think about red-tinted orange. 

They both look out over the ocean, though, and think of the same things, and Tommy knows Fundy is still the same little boy who's hand he held in the woods, the same boy he named himself. 

Tommy runs away from L'manberg clutching his older brother's hand, though, and suddenly he's not so sure. Tommy turns to see a man with a burning flag and fire in his eyes, and for the first time Tommy does not see his nephew. 

Tommy leads his brother away, and he feels his heart splinter. He breaks one promise and fulfills another, but looking into Wilbur's eyes he still feels like he's lost. His older brother is crying, and they have been left again. 

His grip tightens, and Tommy turns and does not look back (if he did, all he would see is red-tinted orange and think of a painted sunset.)

**Author's Note:**

> I really liked writing heartbreak and I just couldn't get Tommy's pov out of my head so,, here. Uncle Tommy supremacy. 
> 
> Comments are appreciated!!!


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